Interpretive Summary: As a new industrial crop, milkweed is in high demand for its fiber as components in hypoallergenic bedding material. This increased demand in milkweed results in a considerable amount of seed oil being available. In efforts to find further uses of milkweed seed oil, novel UV skin-protectants were created from milkweed oil molecules and ferulic acid, a natural UV-absorbing molecule. The present research demonstrates that two groups of the new UV skin-protectants incorporated well within model cell made of soybean lecithin and provided protections against cellular oxidative damage. These findings will provide researchers with a better understanding of similar skin-protectants; producers will benefit from the current studies because it presents a new value-added use of oil from a commodity crop.

Technical Abstract:
Milkweed (Asclepia syriaca) has seed oil that is rich in polyunsaturated triacylglycerides that contain olefinic groups. The olefinic groups can be chemically oxidized to form either epoxy or polyhydroxy triacylglycerides that can be esterified with trans-4-hydroxy-3-methoxoycinnamic acid, commonly known as ferulic acid. These novel new lipids were demonstrated to incorporate well in phospholipid vesicles and stabilize them. Lipid peroxidation measurements demonstrated that both epoxy and polyhydroxy forms of ferulated milkweed oil are capable of preventing lipid peroxidation.